


First Love

by keithyourpal



Series: shiro/adam + shiro/keith [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Everyone Loves Shiro, First Crush, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Break Up, Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Kerberos Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-14 11:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15387825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithyourpal/pseuds/keithyourpal
Summary: The worst part, Keith thinks miserably, is howniceAdam is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In this house we love and respect Shiro's relationship with Adam and Adam's position when he decided to leave.
> 
> This fic is from Keith's POV and is about his feelings for Shiro, while also exploring Adam's relationship with Shiro. I'm trying to bust this out in spite of my arm. Hoping to finish it quickly but we'll see! The title is from Utada Hikaru's song [Hatsukoi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uULHI-soUOk), which I think could apply to Adam/Shiro just as much as Keith/Shiro.

  
  
  
  


The worst part, Keith thinks miserably, is how _nice_ Adam is.

He’s seen Adam around the base a few times over the past semester, always in the background, blending in with everyone else wearing a gray uniform. He doesn't get on Keith’s case like Iverson does, and for weeks Keith has just written him off as yet another instructor who doesn’t want to get involved.

So when Shiro asks him if he wants to go racing in the desert that weekend, Keith thinks nothing of it. Shiro takes up a lot of time with him off the clock, sometimes to tutor him on the non-piloting stuff he doesn’t care about and struggles with in class, sometimes so they can just sit on their bikes and overlook the desert and get away from the Garrison entirely.

It’s . . . different. No one’s treated him as anything except trouble since his dad died. His foster parents tried to make him feel welcome for a while. They tried too hard and it made their real son resentful. He said they gave Keith special treatment; it’s what his classmates at the Garrison say now.

When he sees another officer talking with Shiro by the hoverbikes, he hangs back. The three weekends of extra simulator training that Iverson doled out ended last week, and Keith has tried to behave in spite of his classmates’ needling for giving James Griffin a black eye.

They expect him to continue lashing out and he would be fine with giving them what they want, except he’s started to feel bad about it. At his old school no amount of trips to the principal’s office or scoldings by his foster parents had been enough to make him feel like this.

The only difference between then and now is Shiro. Shiro, who Keith’s classmates tease him about and who the other instructors complain to about him. Shiro, who ignores it all and is patient with Keith regardless, who was supportive even after Keith stole his car and punched out another student.

Shiro, who brought another officer along to what’s supposed to be _their_ thing. And suddenly the prospect of racing in the desert like they always do on the weekends has stopped feeling like an escape and started feeling like another imminent lecture.

Keith waits too late to try and run back to his dorm. Shiro looks up from inspecting his bike and spots him hesitating across the blacktop. He smiles broadly, waving, and Keith hates that he feels just as suspicious and wary as he did when they first met.

“Glad you made it,” Shiro says once Keith reluctantly shuffles over to the second bike. He gestures toward the other officer, who Keith notices with relief is still dressed in his uniform and not riding gear like Shiro. The relief doesn’t last long when he notices the officer has an arm around Shiro’s waist. “Keith, this is Adam.”

“You probably know me as Lieutenant Novak,” Adam says, pushing up his glasses. Keith vaguely remembers seeing that curly hair here and there during flight training.

“No, I don’t,” he says.

Adam feigns hurt, clutching at the front of his jacket. “Yowch! You weren’t kidding, Takashi. He’s a real spitfire.”

“Are we going or what?” Keith snaps. This time he can see that Adam is genuinely taken aback. _Good_ , he thinks viciously, trying to ignore the mounting sense of guilt when Shiro’s mouth tightens. This is how he’s always been and this is how people should respond to him.

“I’ll get out of your hair.” Adam leans in close and kisses Shiro on the cheek, just a quick peck before leaning back and frowning with mock severity, his hand still on Shiro’s hip. “Don’t forget, Lieutenant Shirogane. Twenty hundred hours. You promised.”

Shiro swings a leg over his bike. “I know, I know. See you later.”

Adam gives Keith a nod and heads off the compound toward the officers’ quarters. Keith clambers up on his own bike and revs it up. He looks over to Shiro when he doesn’t follow suit and sees him hunch over suddenly, left hand squeezing the back of his right arm.

“You ready?” Keith asks.

“Uh, yeah, yeah. Just dropped my keys.” Shiro twists in his seat to face him. “Got your goggles?”

Keith rolls his eyes and pulls his goggles on. They’re uncomfortable and pinch his hair, yet no matter how many times they do this Shiro won’t go until he puts them on. After seeing that Keith is safely goggled up, Shiro revs his bike up with a beautiful, thunderous roar and takes off. If Keith was anyone else he’d be left in the dust. Instead he catches up effortlessly and they race off through the desert, leaving the Garrison’s high oppressive gates behind them. 

  
  


\------

  
  


“I’m sorry,” Keith says again, fighting back more tears. The sun is almost down and they’re stuck in the middle of nowhere and his bike won’t start and it’s all his fault. He tried taking a jump, higher than he’s ever tried before, and hit the ground too hard. Debris must have caught in one of the windblades because all he can remember is the horrible screech of metal just before the violent jerking flung him off the bike and sent him skidding across the hot, hard earth.

“Don’t be,” Shiro says, likewise for what must be the hundredth time. He wipes his forehead with the back of his forearm, his metal wristband glinting in the dwindling sunlight, and stands up to try the ignition. His pristine black riding jacket hangs around Keith’s trembling shoulders. His broad, bare arm muscles gleam with sweat and oil as he works.

Keith wishes he’d paid more attention in class about anything related to the construction of the Garrison’s vehicles, because then maybe he could do something to help instead of sit here uselessly on a rock while Shiro cleans up his mess, like always. A sob catches in his throat when, with a load ugly rattle, his bike comes back to life.

Shiro cuts the engine with a tired laugh and stoops back down to gather up all the spare parts and tools he’d laid out on a towel. “There,” he says, “that should get us back to the Garrison, at least. Does your arm feel any better?”

“Who cares?” Keith has kept his left arm cradled in his lap the whole time Shiro was working. He feels a few scrapes along the side of his face but his arm caught the worst of it. The fall tore the sleeve of his jacket, scraping up the length of his ulna into a mess of blood and grit. He hadn’t even felt the pain at first, just sat up dizzily while the dust settled to find himself several meters away from where his bike came to a lopsided rest, several of its panels dented and one of its windblades gnarled.

What he remembers the clearest is Shiro’s voice shouting from the top of the cliffside, and then the shadow that fell over Keith when he arced overhead, coming to a perfect landing. Keith remembers the concern that felt so loud even when Shiro kept his voice level as he ran over with the first aid kit in hand and patched him up. Shiro hadn’t even looked at the bike until after he sprayed Keith’s injury and bandaged him up. 

And that _hurts_. Why does Shiro give a shit about him when he’s ruined such an expensive bike? When all he does is ruin things?

“Keith, look at me.” Shiro kneels down in front of him. Keith looks away, wishing he could wipe at the tears streaking through the dirt and blood on his face. He feels dirty and disgusting all over. He only took such a reckless dive in the first place because--because he was mad, mad at Shiro, and he doesn’t even know why.

He is so confused.

“Keith, it’s okay. I’m not upset.” Shiro pushes up the torn sleeve of Keith’s jacket gently, checking on the bandages. Then he looks up into Keith’s face, his eyes full of worry, but not the kind his foster parents had whenever they whispered about what on earth were they going to do about him. “The important thing is that you weren’t hurt worse than this.”

“But the bike--”

“The bike can be fixed.”

“I made you miss your date,” Keith says desperately, because why won’t Shiro just get mad at him already, like everyone else does? Why won’t he just leave Keith alone?

“He’ll understand, trust me.” Shiro helps him stand up. “Take my bike. When we get back to base I’ll take you by the infirmary.”

“I can go by myself,” Keith mumbles, and thinks sullenly, _So you can go on your date._


	2. Chapter 2

  
  


In the end, Shiro insists on accompanying him to the infirmary anyway. Keith is too tired to argue. He’s too tired to even squirm or flinch while the nurse cleans up the dirt-encrusted cuts on his face, then applies ointment that stings before bandaging a large swathe of gauze over his left cheek.

“Didn’t think I’d see you back so soon,” the nurse says.

“I--” Keith stops when he feels Shiro’s hand on his shoulder.

“There. Good as new,” the nurse says as he finishes rebandaging Keith’s arm. Keith touches the fresh gauze, feeling the wound burn. Now that the initial shock is gone, the pain is almost overwhelming.

After leaving the infirmary he makes tracks for his dorm, aware with every step that Shiro is still there. He didn’t press for conversation when they rode back to the Garrison or after he dropped the damaged bike by the shop. In a way his silence is as confusing as his words of comfort, and Keith doesn’t understand why he can’t just be happy with whatever Shiro decides to do for him.

“I can go back by myself,” he mumbles.

“I know, Keith. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m _fine_.”

When they pass by the rec room a few cadets notice them through the glass and come spilling out in a flood of excitement, waylaying Shiro and ignoring Keith. Just like with some of the instructors, most of them simply don’t want to get involved with him one way or the other.

“Keith, wait,” Shiro calls when Keith continues walking, leaving him and the crowd of cadets behind.

When he reaches his dorm, he slides Shiro’s riding jacket off and holds it up, rubbing his thumbs against the mesh fabric. For a moment he wonders if he could still smell Shiro. The thought makes him panic. He tosses Shiro’s jacket aside, pulse thudding, then picks it up to lay across his desk.

He pulls his own jacket off and sinks to the floor beside his bunk as he feels along the huge tear in the fabric, where blood and dirt have dried along the frayed threads. He figures it’s time to just throw the jacket away. His foster mother gave it to him. He doesn’t need it anymore.

  
  


\-----

  
  


When he goes out to the bikes the next afternoon, his mood only nominally improved by a long night’s sleep, Shiro isn’t there. Adam is. 

He’s leaning up against the bike Shiro always takes with his hands in his pockets. He spies Keith before he can back out of the compound and waves him over earnestly.

“What do you want?” Keith mutters once he’s close enough for Adam to hear.

Adam puts his hand back in his pocket, this time not reacting to Keith’s tone with anything more than a slight cock of his head. “Takashi’s gonna be late. He wanted me to come by so you wouldn’t think he bailed.”

Keith almost drops his goggles. Shiro being _late_ for anything seems as likely as Iverson sprouting a full mane of hair. “What? Why? What happened?”

“He just has a physical exam. Routine stuff.” Adam runs a hand along the bike’s handles. “Anyway, it’s nice to be able to talk with you. I have my hands full with my own classes so I don’t always get to meet all the cadets.”

“You mean, you just wanted to see the problem student up close.” 

Keith knows he’s a-tried and-true topic of conversation in the instructors’ lounge. They probably talk about him over coffee and bagels. When the weather is too boring to discuss, at least the Kogane kid is still a show-off who hit another student.

“What? No! No,” Adam says, shaking his head so hard his glasses threaten to fly off. He straightens them hastily. “No, Keith. I mean it. Look, I know you’ve had trouble adjusting to the Garrison. Everyone goes at their own pace--” 

“Yeah, everyone’s different, we all progress differently, I get it. I’ve heard it all before.”

Adam leans back again, studying Keith quietly. Keith doesn’t like it; he feels like Adam is trying to figure him out, solve him.

Then Adam grins. “I mean, Takashi made things a total nightmare when we first joined.”

Keith looks him up and down, torn between suspicion and curiosity. “Yeah?” he says, trying to play it cool. Shiro’s never said anything about his own time as a student here at the Garrison and as much as Keith wants to know, he’s never been able to bring himself to ask. “. . . How so?”

“He had a lot of talent. A lot of skill. And lot of our classmates hated him for it.”

The idea is incomprehensible. Keith thinks back to his old school, how the other kids knew who Shiro was when their teacher introduced him that day he came for recruitment. And after joining the Garrison Keith has yet to meet anyone, cadet or instructor, who doesn’t see Shiro the way he does. 

“The thing is,” Adam goes on, “he never thought he was too good for anyone just because of his abilities. And he worked hard. People realized that, eventually. But for a long time he was angry. It just made things worse. It makes it hard to open up and show people who you really are.”

“I don’t care what people . . .” Keith starts to say, then stops. He stops because he does care what they think. If not for his sake, then for Shiro’s. He doesn’t want people to keep criticizing Shiro because of him.

“Look, I’m not trying to lecture you,” Adam says, smiling. “I just know Takashi sees you have a lot of potential. So you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

Keith squeezes his goggles in his good hand. “I . . . I don’t know how to be anything else,” he admits reluctantly.

“It’s okay to be confident about your skills. It’s okay to be proud.” Adam looks past him, and Keith follows his line of sight to see Shiro heading toward them. 

When he looks back Adam is holding out a hand. “And don’t believe anyone who says you’re just here because of him. He’s not so amazing that the Garrison would keep you here unless they also thought you were doing something right.”

Keith hesitates, then takes his hand. Adam’s grip is firm, and when he lets go he’s smiling again. He could just be all talk, Keith thinks. 

But as he watches Adam turn to Shiro and sees the way Shiro’s face lights up, he decides maybe he does know what he’s talking about.

“Everything okay?” Adam asks, his smile gone.

“Yeah.” Shiro kisses him on the cheek. Glancing to Keith, he pats Adam’s shoulder and playfully pushes him away from the bike. “Thanks for coming by. I think I can handle it from here.”

Adam slaps his hand away, grinning again. “If you say so. It was nice meeting you properly, Keith.”

Keith is already on a hoverbike, pulling his goggles over his head.

  
  


\-----

  
  


Things don’t immediately get better. Keith still has trouble controlling his temper and his mouth for the remainder of the semester, and the semester after that. After he makes an active effort to take his school work more seriously, Iverson backs off, or at least as much as Iverson can back off about anything.

When Shiro gets promoted their weekend ventures grow more infrequent. The little time they do have together over the next two years means everything to Keith. For the first time since his dad died, he finally feels happy.Then he drops by Shiro’s office at the exact wrong time on the exact wrong evening and everything changes.

“This man is _sick_ ,” he hears Admiral Sanda say, and all the little things--the frequent physicals, Shiro dropping things during a lecture or at the mess hall, the monitor on his wrist he said was just for loosening up his muscles--hits Keith at once. He feels so stupid.

He stumbles away from Shiro’s door. Shiro has been so excited about the Kerberos mission, and even though the thought of him going away for a year, maybe longer, is terrifying, Keith was just happy to see _him_ happy.

And now a selfish part of him is mad that Shiro kept this all a secret.

When Keith wakes up the next morning after a long, fitful night of little sleep, he drags himself from his bed, still in his clothes from the day before, and hunts Shiro down. He finds him at the compound again, working on his bike. Probably tuning it up for their ride this evening. Like that even matters anymore.

Hearing the news from Shiro’s own mouth is so much worse, especially when he says he only has a few years left in peak condition. What the hell does that even mean? He knows Shiro must be sugarcoating the specifics of his condition, because that’s what Shiro does, always minimizing his own troubles to focus on others.

“Adam doesn’t want you to go?” Keith repeats, his throat dry. A dozen questions fight within him, like why Shiro wants to spend the remainder of his life in space, away from Adam. Away from him.

The pain that comes over Shiro’s face is hard to watch. He twists the rag in his hands. “No, he doesn’t. And I get it. Every missions I’ve gone on before has been shorter than the Kerberos mission will be, and there were still . . . complications. He’s worried about me. But--”

The rag slips from his grasp, like the mug of coffee he dropped in the mess hall last week, like his helmet the week before that, like a bunch of other things he’s dropped over the years that he always laughed off as him being clumsy.

His entire body trembles down. “I _have_ to go. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life. I love flying, Keith. I love space. I just want to do it for as long as I’m able to. And I-I thought Adam would understand. I thought he would always be here with me.”

He collapses against the hoverbike and buries his head in his hands. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t make another sound at all.

Keith stands before him, tongue tied, wishing he knew what he could say or do to make everything better. He only thought Shiro was sick. He had no idea that his entire life at the Garrison--with Adam--is in shambles.

“I’m sorry,” he says, even though he wants to call Adam a particular name or two. Adam is still the man Shiro loves, and while Keith firmly believes Shiro deserves to go to Kerberos, he also feels the dread that Adam must feel, creeping through him as he imagines Shiro on the farthest edge of the galaxy, months away from help if anything happens. “I wish I knew how to help.”

“It’s not your problem,” Shiro says, his voice thick and hoarse. He sits up a bit, running a hand through his bangs. His eyes are red and wet.

“Shiro, you don’t have to go through this alone. The mission, Adam . . . I’m here for you.”

Shiro picks up the rag from the ground and stuffs it in his pocket. He moves unsteadily, quite unlike the confident golden boy image he normally projects. Keith sees himself in Shiro’s pain. He remembers how Shiro’s unwavering support helped him work through those messy first months at the Garrison, even when there were days when he was angry at everyone, including Shiro himself.

Shiro forces a smile. “I’ve been meaning to ask if you’d like to come to the launch. I knew Adam wouldn’t mind if I asked you along and now, well . . . now I’d just . . . I’d like to not be alone.”

“Of course,” Keith says. “Anything you need.”

  
  


\-----

  
  


Keith looks for Adam after the launch and finds him in the mess hall, sitting alone in a corner of the room with his head bowed over an empty try.

The entire hall--the entire base--is buzzing with excitement about the Kerberos mission, how it’s the farthest space travel ever undertaken by man, how cool the Holts and Shiro look in their spacesuits. No one has a clue about Shiro’s disease, about what’s at stake. About the very real possibility that he won’t come back.

Adam doesn’t look up when Keith pulls back a chair and sits down heavily. Keith feels as tormented as he had when he first joined the Garrison. His insides are a mess of conflicting emotions that can’t seem to pick anything but one extreme or another to pull him toward.

He keeps replaying the launch in his mind even though it’s not yet an hour behind them. Shiro’s genuine pride when he showed Keith the shuttle, and the deep aching sadness he couldn’t hide when he asked Keith to say goodbye to Adam for him.

Before he can relay Shiro’s final words, Adam speaks.

“I fucked up.”

“Yeah, you--” Keith bites his tongue, hard. “You . . . you were worried for him.”

“I told him I wouldn’t be here when he got back.” Adam’s voice is rough, even worse than Shiro’s sounded when he finally told Keith about his disease. “I said that to him.”

He lifts his head and Keith sees his eyes are wet behind his glasses. “I wish he wasn’t up there,” he whispers. “The last time he came back from deep space, he--Keith, he couldn’t walk for _weeks_. It almost killed him! What was I supposed to do? Just let him go back and hurt himself again without putting up a fight?”

“I don’t know,” Keith admits. He wonders if he’s made the right choice in supporting Shiro’s decision. Even after all these years he still feels like a kid. All he knows is that Shiro wanted to go, and that was enough for him to accept, even with the loneliness already settling in like a dense fog. “. . . He asked me to tell you goodbye.”

Adam takes his glasses off, setting them by his tray, and wipes at his eyes. He reminds Keith of when he was very young, when his father was still alive and would sometimes stare out the window for hours on end as if he was looking for something, waiting for something. “It’s not your problem.”

“I made it my problem,” Keith says. “And while he’s up there, someone has to tutor me in astronomy.”

Adam smiles weakly, his eyes still empty and dull.

  
  


\-----

  
  


A month after the launch, Keith realizes: _I love Shiro_.

Three months after that, the crew of the Kerberos mission is pronounced dead.


	3. Chapter 3

  


The morning assembly is somber as Iverson breaks the news. For a long horrible moment the crowded hall remains in stasis as they collectively struggle to process the announcement. _The entire crew is believed to be dead._

A voice breaks out, then another. People start crying. Keith can’t stay here for one more second but he can’t move. He can’t even think.

Someone behind him laughs. He feels the urge to join in, because Iverson looks fucking ridiculous standing up there with his bald head bowed, his beret held to his chest, like if he tries hard enough it will make any of this believable. The laugh turns into a sob. Voices are rising in every direction. When someone puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder he whirls around, fist at the ready.

The officer who touched him jerks her hand back. Her face is pallid, stray locks of her gray hair falling out of place from her bun. “Come with me,” she says quietly.

She ushers him through the throng of mourning cadets and officers, then down the empty silent halls to the instructors’ lounge. A civilian man in a button-down shirt is already there, fixing a paper cup of coffee. He stirs it, unhurried, when the officer introduces him to Keith as Dr. Cagle, _he’s a grief counselor, I think you two should talk._

“What is this?” Keith asks. His voice sounds like a stranger’s, high and squeak, and he struggles to breathe. “Wh-what is this? A joke?” 

He throws up. Dr. Cagle says maybe they should postpone the counseling and leaves with his coffee. The officer calls for a custodian to come clean up the vomit.

“Cadet Kogane,” she says, pressing a cup of water into his hands after she positions a trash can by his chair, “it’s going to be alright. Hang in there.”

“Leave me alone. Just leave me the fuck alone.”

“We all know how close you were to Lieutenant Shirogane--”

“Shut up!”

He hurls the cup across the lounge. It hits a picture frame on a bookshelf on the far wall, knocking it off with a violent clatter. Water and glass spill across the floor. He screams, tearing at his hair over and over until it hurts, wishing the pain would drown out everything else so he could just wake up, go to class, and keep counting down the days until Shiro comes home.

Minutes or hours later he hears the door open again and the officer leaves his side. He tries to focus on keeping his breathing steady even though his throat is sore and raw, his voice finally gone after screaming, and his chest seizes up every few seconds like he’ll break into a sob like the laughter in the assembly.

All he can think of is Iverson’s pitiful voice through the loudspeaker. Pilot error. Pilot error. Pilot error.

The officer speaks to someone and the door shuts again. He doesn’t want to listen to the slow footsteps that approach or the shaky breath Adam takes before he speaks. 

“N-no,” Keith hiccups, cutting him off, “please, no.” 

Then Keith is pulled to his feet into a tight hug. He feels Adam’s glasses rub against the top of his head and tries to resist, flailing weakly, wanting to push it all away. 

“No,” he says again, voice muffled by Adam’s collar as his hands gig into the back of his uniform, “no, no, no!”

“I know,” Adam murmurs, “I know.”

Keith cries then, feeling like he’s eight years old again and watching his father’s casket being lowered into the grave while a wall of black suits gathers around, trapping him. The arms around him feel like a cage but he’s afraid if Adam lets go he’ll lose himself completely.

  
  


\------

  
  


One month after that, Keith punches Iverson in the face.

  
  


\------

  
  


The entire Garrison is in low spirits for weeks. No one knows when it’s acceptable to move on and try to pretend that everything is normal. The Kerberos disaster has cast a pall over them that none of them can shake, and it isn’t helped by the media encroaching on their grief. What should be private becomes an international spectacle.

 _How could this happen?_ a news anchor asks in the morning over a recording of the launch. _The pilot was sick_ , someone answers in the evening, over a photo of Shiro. _He should never have been cleared to fly. The Garrison has itself--has Takashi Shirogane--to blame._

Keith shuts them all out. His grades drop. He can’t find it in himself to care.

Shiro and the Holts’ absence can’t be covered up by mathematical equations or physics lectures or practical exams. The bullshit counseling and makeshift memorias can’t fill the void. No amount of drills can make the daily routine feel normal ever again.

Then they roll out the new simulation scenario: a rescue mission to Kerberos. Keith breaks out of line before Iverson can even finish explaining the scenario and slugs him in the face with a blind fury, relishing the satisfying crack of his knuckles against cartilage and bone. Iverson staggers. After a beat, blood begins to trickle from his nose.

Keith lowers his fist and stands at attention, eyes trained ahead. His lip trembles because although he thinks it was worth the aftermath, he wonders if Shiro would still be proud of him for it.

Iverson says, “You’re _through_.”

  
  


\------

  
  


An hour later, all of his things are stuffed into one undersized backpack under watch of a guard, who puts him in touch with his foster parents. Keith hasn’t spoken to them in years apart from an occasional courtesy call on holidays. A picture of him with Shiro at the launch has made the rounds on some news circuits, including the one his foster father watches.

“So,” his foster father says, and Keith can just picture him on the other end of the line with a scornful scowl on his face, “you let us think you were making somethin’ of yourself. But it was that Shiro fella keeping you in line after all, huh?”

Keith pulls out the bottom drawer and almost drops his phone. Folded and sitting by itself is Shiro’s mesh riding jacket that Keith spent over two years making up a bunch of lame excuses to justify not giving it back just, until he’d genuinely forgotten about it.

“You ought to come on home. The Garrison was always a mistake. You--”

“No,” Keith says.

“ _No_? Who the hell do you think is gonna run interference for you out there?”

Keith hangs up on him. Long before he turned eighteen last month, he’d already known where he would go when the Garrison decided it didn’t want him anymore.

The guard escorts him past the compound where he and Shiro used to meet before taking the hoverbikes out into the desert. When an officer steps out from the shadows Keith almost drops his bag, because for one stupid moment his brain is tricked by the uniform and he thinks--hopes--that it’s Shiro.

The guard salutes and walks away.

“You’re lucky Iverson is just expelling you,” Adam says, coming to a stop in front of Keith. “It could be a lot worse.”

Nothing could be worse than losing Shiro. Keith knows he doesn’t have to tell Adam that; he looks gaunt and ashen-faced. And he looks disappointed.

“C’mon,” he continues, “I’ll walk you to the gate.”

They haven’t seen each other since that day in the instructors’ lounge. Like Keith, Adam shied away from the grand ceremony following the announcement, drawing into himself to grieve privately. That he and Shiro had technically broken up before the launch was unknown to everyone except Keith, and unlike Shiro’s disease hadn’t come to light after the disaster.

Adam stays with him while he waits for the bus to arrive. When the bus turns off the highway and begins heading down the long road toward them he says, “I think I’m gonna leave the Garrison.”

“What will you do?”

Adam shrugs. “Haven’t figured that out yet. This was . . .” He struggles to continue. “Takashi and I joined together. We fell in love here. I can’t . . . I can’t stay here without him.”

Keith scuffs the pavement with the toe of his boot where he sits on the curb. When the bus comes to a labored, screeching halt by the sign, Adam helps him stand up. They grasp each other’s hand, even after the door hisses open and the bus driver calls for them to get a move on.

“Take care of yourself,” Keith says.

Adam looks surprised, just like when he and Keith met for the first time on the blacktop, only this time when he smiles it’s for real. “You too, spitfire. You too.”

  
  


\------

  
  


The house is gone. All that remains is his dad’s shed, a dilapidated portion of the fence, and his bike. Keith pulls off the dusty cover and feels a sharp ache as he take in the dull red paint, remembering the first time his dad finally agreed to take him for a ride. Sitting behind his dad on the bike, holding on with his small arms, Keith thought they were invincible as they roared through the desert together. The two helmets still hang on the bike handles.

“You gonna be okay out here, son?” Walker asks. Keith remembers him as a loud, brawny man whose wife always sent Dad home with extra leftovers. The years have left him grayer, hunched, and with a bad leg.

At the funeral he’d been one of his dad’s coworkers to hold Keith’s hand during the service. Before he was taken to the home and placed with foster parents, Keith wondered if the other firefighters would still be his family.

“Yeah.” Keith can’t take his eyes off the bike. “Thanks for looking after the property. I know Dad would appreciate it.”

Walker grunts as they walk back out to his truck, leaning hard on his cane as he watches Keith unload the futon from the truck bed. “Reckon I didn’t do it for him.”

Keith does the heavy lifting as Walker cleans up what he ca sweeping cobwebs and dust out of the little shed until it feels like it did when Keith would play in here while his dad worked on the bike.

“Well,” Walker puffs just before sundown as he blots at his leathery face with an oil-stained handkerchief, “holler if you need anything, Keith. Be careful out here.”

His truck sputters as he drives off. Keith sits on the front porch to watch the sun set. He feels a sense of calm, being back in the desert. Being alone.

When he was a kid, being alone had hurt; it still hurts now, but as he looks across the desert and sees the cliffs looming against the dying light, he feels a pull that he can’t explain, calling him to the cliffs, giving him a purpose for the first time since Iverson’s assembly. He thinks, _I won’t give up, Shiro. Not yet._

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have other Adam/Shiro + Shiro/Keith ideas in mind, including a possible sequel of sorts to this fic, but this is all I can do for right now 'v' Thanks so much for reading.


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